I don't care for lemon peel. If I want boozy lemonade, I'll make a Tom Collins.

No green olives in the fridge tonight. No pickled onions for a Gibson.

So I made a big dollop of iced gin with a splash of vermouth and dropped a piparra in the bottom of the glass. That's a small mild Basque pepper pickled in vinegar. It was EXCELLENT. I may dub it the "Ukulele Ike."

What other pickled things have you put in your Martinis when no olives were available? Or WOULD you?

In a shaker 2/3 filled with ice, combine vodka, vermouth, garlic slices and black pepper. Shake hard for 20 seconds and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Optionally add the garlic slices back to the glass.

One I remember is to use some hot sauce instead of vermouth and garnish with a shrimp.

A COOKED shrimp, I hope.

At what point does changing the garnish (or the vermouth ingredient) change the name of the drink? There's an English thing where they put a few dashes of bitters into a glass of gin, but that's just called a "pink gin."

If you put a whiskey sour into a tall glass, filled it with ice, and topped it with seltzer, you'd have a John Collins, the whiskey alternative to a Tom Collins. But making the same drink with vodka or rum yields a Vodka Collins or a Rum Collins....no proper Christian name given.

A Gimlet is a whiskey sour made with gin. A Daiquiri is a Gimlet made with rum.

If you put a whiskey sour into a tall glass, filled it with ice, and topped it with seltzer, you'd have a John Collins, the whiskey alternative to a Tom Collins. But making the same drink with vodka or rum yields a Vodka Collins or a Rum Collins....no proper Christian name given.

A Gimlet is a whiskey sour made with gin. A Daiquiri is a Gimlet made with rum.

Actually, a gin sour is a different drink than a gimlet. Similar, sure, but not the same. If I ask for a gimlet and get gin and sour, it's getting sent back. Gin and Rose's for me, or Roses cut with lime juice if you're feeling fancy. I've made it with homemade like syrup, but I just need the Rose's for it to taste right to me.

Do you like limes? A twist of lime peel, a small slice of key lime, or a bit of meyer lemon peel also does the trick. My wife doesn't like lemons at all, but she does like limes and meyer lemons so that's what goes in hers. I get three jalapeno or blue cheese stuffed olives in mine.
I've also been playing around with bitters and Dillon's wormwood bitters was really good for a change up. I like using Tanquery 10 or Hendrick's for gin.

What is the difference between a Gibson and a Martini? Is is just the garnish?

Pretty much. Both are gin and vermouth, plus garnish. There are variations in the ratios of gin to vermouth, but martinis have variations of that, too. Wikipedia gives the same ratio of gin and vermouth for both drinks: 6:1.

Of course, nowadays, martini usually signifies "vodka martini," just as it used to signify "dry martini." "Martini" was the name of a different drink with a 1:1 ratio of gin and sweet vermouth.

Actually, a gin sour is a different drink than a gimlet. Similar, sure, but not the same. If I ask for a gimlet and get gin and sour, it's getting sent back. Gin and Rose's for me, or Roses cut with lime juice if you're feeling fancy. I've made it with homemade like syrup, but I just need the Rose's for it to taste right to me.

Yup. And a daiquiri is essentially a rum sour made with lime juice instead of lemon (or vice-versa; I think the daiquiri came first).

Cocktails/mixed drinks come in "families", which means that they're essentially the same drink, but made with slightly different ingredients. So a daiquiri and a whiskey sour fall into the same family- both are spirits, sour & sugar. Similarly, the older versions of the Martini (gin, vermouth, orange bitters) fall very squarely into the same family as the Manhattan (bourbon, red vermouth, aromatic bitters).

Garnishes typically aren't the decisive factor in the naming of a drink; most of the older ones (like say.. pre-Prohibition) had fast and loose garnishing rules- if you read the old books, there are rarely any hard and fast rules- they suggest things like nuts as garnishes in martinis, etc...

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